Temporal Processing Across Multiple Topographic Maps in the Electrosensory System

Temporal processing across multiple topographic maps in the electrosensory system.

Multiple topographic representations of sensory space are common in the nervous system and presumably allow organisms to separately process particular features of incoming sensory stimuli that vary widely in their attributes. We compared the response properties of sensory neurons within three maps of the body surface that are arranged strictly in parallel to two classes of stimuli that mimic pr...

Motion processing across multiple topographic maps in the electrosensory system

Abstract Animals can efficiently process sensory stimuli whose attributes vary over orders of magnitude by devoting specific neural pathways to process specific features in parallel. Weakly electric fish offer an attractive model system as electrosensory pyramidal neurons responding to amplitude modulations of their self-generated electric field are organized into three parallel maps of the bod...

Topographic maps are fundamental to sensory processing.

In all mammals, much of the neocortex consists of orderly representations or maps of receptor surfaces that are typically topographic at a global level, while being modular at the local level. These representations appear to emerge in development as a result of a few interacting factors, and different aspects of brain maps may be developmentally linked. As a result, evolutionary selection for s...

Mechanisms for generating temporal filters in the electrosensory system.

Temporal patterns of sensory information are important cues in behaviors ranging from spatial analyses to communication. Neural representations of the temporal structure of sensory signals include fluctuations in the discharge rate of neurons over time (peripheral nervous system) and the differential level of activity in neurons tuned to particular temporal features (temporal filters in the cen...

Processing Submillisecond Timing Differences in a Model Electrosensory System